Set My Mind to Wandering
by anthrop
Summary: With her black hair a mess of bangs and a long, slim ponytail, she's a sight for sure, but Jo doesn't doubt the clench of her jaw when she scowls. Runaways that make it this far never make it by luck alone. (Dani at the Roadhouse shortfic)


_A/N: Written for the SuperPhantom Week challenge over on Tumblr. Day 3's prompt was 'minor characters,' so here's some Dani and Jo at the Roadhouse! Wanted to go a different direction with this one but I ran out of time. Ah well._

* * *

Jo doesn't see the girl come in. It's a busy night, lots of big, swaggering hunters boasting their latest kills. The juke is blaring and there's laughter in some corners and short-lived shouting matches in others. A couple guys get the boot early in the night for trying to start a fight; nothing that can't be nipped in the bud by her mom snarling out a warning from behind the right end of a shotgun. It's a busy night, but there's nothing new about that.

Except her.

She's little. Not short, or at least she's probably about Jo's height when she stands up. But she's got that underfed, stretched-thin look of somebody going through a growth spurt on a slim diet. Her clothes are faded and baggy, her jeans shredded at the hems, the t-shirt meant for someone twice her size. She's hunched up at a table alone and apparently unafraid of the scarred men casually flashing knives and talking horror stories like they're the real deal. She barely looks old enough for high school, but it's clear she came to the Roadhouse alone. A runaway? She wouldn't be the first one that came through.

"You're a little young to drink, aren't you?" Jo asks, sidling up to her table with a broad tray of empty glasses balanced on one hand.

The girl blinks up at her owlishly. Even in the smoke-thick air Jo can see the bruise-colored bags under her eyes-hell of a color too, her eyes, if Jo can make 'em out so cleanly. Pale blue. Cornflower blue. Dorothy's gingham dress blue. With her black hair a mess of bangs and a long, slim ponytail, she's a sight for sure, but Jo doesn't doubt the clench of her jaw when she scowls. Runaways that make it this far never make it by luck alone.

"I've got money for food," the girl says stubbornly, which makes Jo grin.

"Well that's good, since I'd have to show you the door if you didn't. What'll it be?"

She orders enough for three people, tacking on, "Just bring it out at the same time. No one else is coming." Clearly she's been through enough pit stops and restaurants on her own she knows what questions people will ask. Jo just tips her head and assures her it'll be out in no time.

"Goddamn EMF meter keeps going off," a scrawny hunter all in black complains as Jo passes him. "Hey Ellen, you got a ghost spookin' up the kitchen or what?"

Jo's mother throws her head back, barking laughter. "What, with the amount a hunters we get through here? Ain't my fault you got _faulty_ equipment, Kenny."

The roadhouse fills with friendly jeering to drown out the hunter's snippy retort. A usual night at the Roadhouse.

When the girl's order is up Jo drops it off at her table. "Here you go, hun. Let me know how it tastes and if you give me a minute I'll be back with a refill for that Coke."

"Wait," the girl says, her voice curiously sharp. Jo pauses, half-turned, to look back at her.

"I forget something?" she asks, but the girl shakes her head.

"All these guys. They're... ghost hunters?" She says it like it's practically a bad word. Jo grins.

"Some of 'em, sure. You got vamp hunters, demon hunters, werewolf hunters, and just about all of 'em know how to kill all of the above and then some."

"Oh." She doesn't look at Jo after that, just picks up her fork and starts eating.

Jo gets her hands full with a cluster of drunk hunters at the pool table, listening to stories, fetching new drinks, and hustling half of them out of every crumpled dollar they've got. She doesn't see the girl the rest of the night, figures her mom or Ash dealt with the check and the girl slipped out when Jo wasn't looking. She sends a hopeful thought after the runaway girl with the big appetite, and figures she'll never be seen at the Roadhouse again.

Things don't slow down til near closing time, when Ellen's shooing hunters out the door and the juke finally gets a break. It's just worn-out grumbling and staggering footsteps and the creak of old wood after that, and as always it's a shock, how quiet the Roadhouse gets at closing.

Ash calls Not It to get out of trash duty. Jo hits him with a harmless gut punch, fondly yelling, "At least sweep the floor you lazy sonuvabitch," on her way to the kitchen. He waves her off sloppily, reaching for the broom.

It's a two-trip night, that's for sure. Jo grabs a bulging trash bag in each hand and kicks open the back door, heading for the dumpsters. She doesn't hear the low-voiced men over the clink and rattle of glass bottles, but she does hear a girl's frightened yelp. She freezes, uncertain.

"Leave me alone!"

No doubt, it's the girl from earlier, the blue-eyed girl with the big appetite. Jo _runs_.

Out front of the Roadhouse, three hunters have her cornered against a truck. Her empty hands are held up defensively, freckles stark on her fear-pale face. From behind, Jo can only recognize one hunter: skinny, all in black, voice like a rat squeaking. Kenny. The other two are big, _real_ big. One's got a tire iron, the other a half-open backpack no doubt filled with hunting goodies. Kenny-Kenny's got a gun out, pointed straight at a girl half his size.

"Now then," Kenny sneers, "Why don't you just fess up what manner of monster you are already so we can get this over with?"

"Only monsters I see around here are _you_ thugs," the girl retorts. Brave kid. _Stupid_ kid.

Jo's only got her dad's old pocket knife. Three armed men. Three _drunk_ armed men. Three drunk armed _hunters_. This is definitely a bad idea. "_Hey!_ Why don't you back off?"

They turn. The hunter with the bag says in a reedy slur, "Don't you worry about a thing, missy. We'll get this thing off your momma's property and back to Hell where it belongs in no time."

"What are you talking about? She's just a kid!"

"Riding _around_ in one, maybe," Kenny says. "She ain't human though. EMF's off the charts around her and Ted here saw the bitch _floating_."

"She was hiding something' up on the roof!" The second big guy, Ted presumably, points up at the Roadhouse with the tire iron.

"If she's messing with the Roadhouse that ain't hunter business, it's _Harvelle_ business. So just back off and let me handle her-"

But the girl's gone. There wasn't room for her to slip away, and she would have made some kind of scuffle if she'd tried to slide under the truck. _Vanished_. The hunters notice a hair after Jo does, and immediately flip. Kenny pulls his EMF reader out of a jacket pocket, flipping it on with a snarled curse. "Meatsuit outta slow down a ghost!" he snaps. "None of that fancy vanishing bullshit. So we ain't dealing with a ghost!"

"_Demon_," Jo breathes. She's never seen one, but she knows the stories. Black eyes and the stink of sulfur. More likely to tear your throat open than say hello. But the girl-earlier, she'd been polite, nervous sure, but human as anybody else in the bar. But. Demons _lie_. Every hunter worth his salt has told her that, told her stories of how they trick and deceive and manipulate, and who would ever suspect a teenage runaway in a holey Incubus t-shirt?

"_Demon?_" a bodiless voice says incredulously. "Don't tell me those are real too!"

The girl pops into existence, her scuffed heels a full three feet above the hunters' heads. She's grinning, and her eyes-they aren't demon black, but they aren't blue anymore either. They _flare_ glow stick green, bright as headlights in the dark.

"There she is!" Teddy yells needlessly, swinging his crowbar. It passes harmlessly through her, like she's made of smoke, and she _laughs_.

"Sorry to ruin your idea of a good time, boys, but I don't plan on dying just yet."

The same sick green light shines in her palms, and something instinctive twists in Jo's gut. She throws herself to the dirt, shields her head just as something _explodes_. Heat and pressure push at her, drag her across the gravel, and the three hunters' screams are cut short before they can even get started.

When Jo dares to lift her head, the hunters are all out cold and the girl is gone.

* * *

In the morning, after a shaky explanation to her mother and Ashe, after Ellen chases the hunter's off once a sweep of the Roadhouse showed it was clean, after a night staring up at the ceiling and wondering _what the hell_, Jo climbs up onto the roof. She doesn't know what to expect, if there's anything to expect at all. But she's swapped out her dad's old knife for a silver one, and she creeps along the rough shingles, every inch of her tense as piano wire.

She finds a note, folded up and wedged under a loose shingle. It's written on plain notebook paper, written in a clumsy handwriting that belongs to a grade-schooler instead of a teenager. Between the dirt smudges it says:

_Thanks for trying to stick up for me, even if you just did it_

_cuz you thought I was human. You don't see a lot of friendly_

_faces this side of the GZ, so I appreciate it! Hope I didn't _

_scare ya too bad, and I'll try not to make any trouble the _

_next time I come through. No promises though. :P_

_- Dani_


End file.
